Episode Details

San Francisco’s District 8, home to the Castro, Noe Valley, Glen Park, Diamond Heights, and the surrounding neighborhoods, will choose a new supervisor this November for the first time since 2018. With Supervisor Rafael Mandelman terming out, voters face a pivotal decision about who will carry the district’s voice to City Hall.

Commonwealth Club World Affairs and the San Francisco Democratic Party present "The Gr8T Debate," a live, one-hour debate featuring candidates Gary McCoy, Michael Nguyen and Darshini Patel. They’ll go head-to-head on the issues that matter most to District 8 residents: housing and affordability, public safety, small business recovery, homelessness and the drug crisis, and preserving the district’s LGBTQ+ history and culture.

Moderated by KQED’s Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos, co-hosts of "Political Breakdown," this is your chance to hear the candidates in their own words, compare their plans side by side, and decide for yourself before you mark your ballot.

Marisa Lagos is a correspondent for KQED’s California Politics and Government Desk and co-hosts the award-winning show and podcast, "Political Breakdown." At KQED, Lagos also conducts reporting, analysis and investigations into state, local and national politics for radio, TV, online and onstage. In 2022, she and co-host Scott Shafer moderated the only gubernatorial debate in California. In 2020, The Washington Post named her one of the top political journalists in California; she was nominated for a Peabody and won several other awards for her work investigating the 2017 California wildfires. She has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Times. A UC Santa Barbara graduate, she lives in San Francisco with her two sons and husband.

Scott Shafer is the senior politics correspondent with the KQED Politics and Government desk. He is co-host of "Political Breakdown," the award-winning radio show and podcast with a personal take on the world of politics. Shafer came to KQED in 1998 to host the statewide "California Report." Prior to that he had extended stints in politics and government. He uses that inside experience at KQED in his, reporting, hosting and analysis for the politics desk. Scott recently completed a 5-part podcast titled "The Speaker," examining Rep. Nancy Pelosi's life and legacy. Previously he collaborated on "Political Breakdown" and on "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown," an eight-part series about the life and extraordinary political career of the former governor. For fun, he plays water polo and swims with the San Francisco Tsunami.

See more  Michelle Meow Show programs at Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices